Counterclaim Filed in File-Swapping Case

washingtonpost ^ | Tuesday, January 28, 2003; 10:40 AM | The Associated Press

[Houmatt]

They want their member companies to get paid. P2P downloads (this got demonstrated in the Napster case) were overwhelmingly latest and greatest chart-toppers, not obscure, scarce, non-revenue-generating pieces.

I am well aware of that. In fact, I have heard of mp3s of tunes coming out before the CD they came from are released. I admit, that is a problem, but there is a solution, which has been tried, and it works.

What is it?

Make ALL advance release albums available on CASSETTE.

Legally, they do...

No, they don't. They just think they do.

To illustrate my point, watch a film made in the last decade where one or more people sing "Happy Birthday To You". Then watch the credits at the end. The song credits will say, verbatim:

"Happy Birthday To You" Music and Lyrics by Patty Hill and Mildred Hill.

Sometimes, the credit also says:

Used under license from MPL Communications, Ltd.

What is MPL Communications? MPL stands for McCartney Productions Limited. As in Paul McCartney. He owns the song. And when it is used, he gets paid for it. Not the RIAA. Not the record companies.

Get the picture?

[JSteff]

For clarity you may wish to carefully reread my post
My post spoke nothing of the producers right to his work. I spoke merely from the common sense point of marketing and the producer earning more from his work. Isn't a copy right wasted if there are not sales? That is unless they did it only for their own benefit, which I hardly think is the case.
I spoke ONLY to the facts that in one case there was a suit, it lost, and the artists and copyright holders saw a SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN SALES. In the other suit, they won and there was a SIGNIFICANT DECREASE in $$$ generated.
They are trying to be short term greedy and make a point, but are too stupid to see it will cost them the money they desire.
It happened before. Short term stupidity was all I addressed in my post.

[July 4th]

Downloading copyrighted music for free isn't right, but that doesn't stop me from saying that the RIAA management couldn't get their heads up their a$$es any further.